


And If I Had To Pull You Out Of The Wreckage, You Know I'm Never Gonna Let You Go

by ElizabethOlsenIsMySpiritAnimal



Series: After Laughter [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethOlsenIsMySpiritAnimal/pseuds/ElizabethOlsenIsMySpiritAnimal
Summary: He'll watch over them. Always.





	And If I Had To Pull You Out Of The Wreckage, You Know I'm Never Gonna Let You Go

**Author's Note:**

> [Time Bomb / Dirty Work / All Time Low](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgNsE9Uhzc)

_“No one’s ever really gone.”_

_\- Luke Skywalker, The Last Jedi_

//

“Hey, Pep.”

Tony watches as his daughter plays in the surf with Pepper. Morgan splashes in the waves, giggling, tossing wet sand and handfuls of water around as she and her mother play a game, which isn’t so much a game as it is just creating chaos for the sake of chaos. A part of him wants to strip off his shirt and join them, run into the surf and dive in, throwing around water and sand with nary a care in the world.

And then a wave passes through him, and he remembers he can’t.

Because...well, he’s dead.

Anthony Edward Stark is dead, and he can’t find it in himself to care.

He remembers what happened, those last painful moments before he woke up here.

_I...am...Iron Man._

All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to go out. It beats Afghanistan, or the Palladium, or New York, or Titan, or hell, even that time he’d eaten fifteen tacos in the space of ten minutes so he could win a bet with some frat guy at MIT.

Yes, the Great Taco incident still counts as a “near-death” experience.

“It’s been a while.”

Well, maybe not a long, long while. It’s only been what, a month since they sent his remains up the river? He’s not sure. Time flows differently here, wherever the hell he is. It’s just like the world, except not like the world, and after he’d opened his eyes and realized that _yes,_ he was alive-ish in the Force Ghost kind of sense.

“I’m glad you’re fixing things up at the cabin.”

God, that’s a cringy way to open a conversation with a woman who can’t even hear him, but he doesn’t fucking care. Pepper’s strong. Stronger than he ever was, and she’s taken to cleaning his things up and packing them away as easily as she would’ve for any number of his trips across the globe.

Except, well, this time, it’s kind of permanent.

“I don’t like what you’ve done with my room, but I doubt anyone would.”

It’s true. She’s leaving it...untouched. Like a memorial. Everything's in its place, like she was just waiting for him to walk in and mess it all up again. His clothes are ironed, placed in the closet, bed made and floor tidied up, hell, his old phone and computer and other gadgets are all hooked up to be charged, not that anyone will be using them anymore.

“For the record, being able to walk through things is only fun until you see someone naked you really shouldn’t have.”

Pepper laughs, the product of something Morgan did, but he pretends she’s laughing because of him. He liked that, making her laugh. And smile. And now that he thinks about it, angry. Angry Pepper was always fun to see. So long as she wasn’t angry at well, _him._

Though frankly, he’d give anything to hear her talk to him one last time.

“I mean, I think that it’s great, I can go anywhere I want and no one can do anything about it, but still, I miss the people on the other side.”

He really does.

“You. Morgan. Happy. Rhodey. Bruce. Rogers. Hell, even the build-a-bear. List goes on and on.” Really, it does. If he rattled off the list of people he’d like to talk to right now, he’d be stuck there all day. “But that’s okay. I have all the time in the world.”

He kneels down in the surf, pretending that the water is washing around him and not _through_ him, and reaches out, brushes a finger against the cheek of his wife, holding his digit just so that it almost feels like he’s touching her again. “I miss you. So much.” He says.

Pepper doesn’t react. He doesn’t mind.

“And you-”

He brushes his hand against Morgan’s head, wishing he could feel her hair tussle in his hands one last time. “-stay out of trouble, okay? Listen to your mom, Uncle Happy and Uncle Rhodey and Uncle Bruce and all the others, ya hear?” His daughter moves away, heading back towards the shore, and he follows along. From the looks of it, Pepper’s packing up, and a glance at the sun tells him it’s late. Has he really been reminiscing that long?

Apparently so, yes.

He watches as his wife and daughter leave the beach and head back to the cabin. He follows along, wills himself into the passenger seat of the car and nods along to the music that Pepper plays as she drives home with Morgan. The little girl is learning her old man’s music catalogue. That’s good, at least it won’t be collecting dust up in the attic.

He sticks around for dinner. Watches as Pepper serves Morgan her favorite food, preparing it just the way that he used to. He sits there, watches as they eat in silence, occasionally talking, though the conversation never goes very far.

He really should crack a joke. Dinner was _never_ boring when he was around.

Come time for bed, he wills new clothes onto his form with a thought. His usual clothes become pajama pants, an old shirt of his and a bathrobe, a gaudy one that Morgan had picked out for him which he’d worn literally every day he could because she liked seeing him look stupid in it. He watches Pepper kiss their daughter goodnight. When the room falls into silence and darkness, he decides it’s time to let his daughter sleep.

“I love you three-thousand.” He says, and leans down, pressing his lips to his daughter’s forehead.  

“I love you three-thousand-and-fifty.” Morgan whispers as he pulls back, and as Tony looks down as his daughter, he sees her staring at him.

Not _through_ him.

 _At_ him.

She yawns. “Goodnight, daddy.” She says, and gives him a little wave.

“Night, pumpkin.” He says, pantomiming the opening of the door out of habit.

“-and go to sleep, or I’ll sell all your toys.”

…

Pepper climbs into bed.

Yawns.

Lies on _her side_ of the bed.

Tony climbs onto his side, or what was his side, anyways, and cuddles up against Pepper.

“Hey, Pep.” He says, for the second time that day, and to his absolute lack of surprise, she doesn’t react. She simply lies there, attempting to sleep, even though he knows full well that her mind is full of thoughts, and they’re not nice ones.

“You’re infringing on my territory.”

It’s an old joke, but it makes him smile anyways. Way back when Morgan refused to sleep alone, they’d drawn up sides of the bed. _Mommy’s Side, Daddy’s Side, and the Demilitarized Zone._ Pepper’s arm is currently infringing on his side, which is pretext for a pillow war. Not that he could pick up a pillow and toss it at her, but he really wishes he could, if only because the act would get Pepper to react in a way he wants to see again.

“FYI, I’ve jumped up to three-thousand-fifty. You need to pump up those numbers.” He says.

This is the part where Pepper should start laughing. Maybe toss a pillow at him, then brag about how she’s up to two-thousand and this is her comeback phase. He’s met by silence and the sound of breathing. He supposes that’s okay. For now, anyways.

“Personally, I like my bedsheets better.” He says, snuggling up to Pepper, as best as a Force Ghost can, anyways. Try as he might, he still passes through things, so he’s technically not covered by the blankets and that really breaks the immersion of the whole thing. “But these aren’t bad. I guess.”

Pepper remains still, breathing quietly in the dim light of the room. She’s still trying to sleep, for whatever good that’s gonna do. “I have to say, this isn’t really how I expected it to go down. Odds stacked fourteen million to one, I was expecting the big win to be Lebowski chopping his head off in the big rematch or something.”

Thor.

He misses the man. He’s somewhere up in space right now, no doubt fighting with Mr. Lord over who gets to wear the pants in the relationship. He’d pay him a visit, but he likes to keep an eye on his family.

Maybe later.

“But since when does life ever go down the way we want it to go down?” He says, more to himself than anything. “I guess that’s the beauty of it all. Life goes down, and we roll with it.” He lets out a sigh. “I should’ve rolled harder.”

He hears what he hopes is a snort of laughter, but he knows enough about life that it’s a sob. Pepper’s crying again, and all he can do is watch. He hates watching, he’s done enough of that for a lifetime. God knows he’s made her cry enough.

“Tony.” Pepper sobs, curling up into a ball. He wraps himself around her, even though she can’t feel him, and stays there, listening to her cry and whisper his name over and over, as if saying it enough will bring him back.

“It’s gonna be okay, Pep.” He says over and over, running his fingers through her hair, or at least, attempting to. “It’s gonna be okay.”

He’s not sure how long it takes her to stop crying, to finally settle down and start sliding towards some form of sleep. But when her breathing evens out and her heart stops beating so fast, he decides that it’s time to take his leave.

“I love you.” He says, and brings his lips to brush against hers. For the briefest of moments, he thinks he feels the sensation of her against him, and for someone in his state, that’s enough.

“I love you, Tony.” Pepper whispers.

“Love you too, Pep.” He whispers back.

…

Those two incidents get him thinking.

Morgan saw him.

Pepper touched him.

Brief, yes, in both cases, but it happened.

If there’s one thing Tony’s never quite gotten out of his system, it’s his habit of always following up on something once it’s taken root in his head. And so, he does. He withdraws from the physical world for a while, focuses on himself, mastering the state of affairs he’s found himself in.

It’s like being in the cave, except minus the box of scraps and the terrorists itching to shoot his head off. But the principles are the same. He’s stuck in a situation, with only his brain to rely on for getting him out.

Not that he ever thinks he’ll get out, but whatever, he’s gonna fucking try.

And finally, one day, what seems like an eternity later, he does it.

Ish.

That’s good enough.

…

One morning, Pepper is in the middle of waking Morgan up when she hears clattering downstairs. Thoughts of a burglar, or perhaps worse, come to her mind, and then she hears music come on.

The kind of music _Tony_ liked.

She runs downstairs, wondering what the hell is going on. If this is someone’s idea of a joke, there’s gonna be hell to-

“Hi.”

-pay?

Pepper stops in her tracks.

Because Tony Stark is standing in the kitchen.

He’s all glowy and ethereal and she can see the stove through the blue-framed form that is her husband. But it’s him. It’s Tony, looking every inch the man she knew and loved. And he’s holding a frying pan in one glowing hand and a pack of bacon in the other.

“It’s me.” He says, setting the food aside and taking a step forward, almost like he isn’t believing it himself. “It’s a long story, but...it’s me.” He walks towards her in a stilted-kind of walk that would look comical if it wasn’t for the fact that Pepper’s emotions are bouncing all over the place, between love and surprise and sadness and-

“I’m here.” Tony says, pressing a hand against Pepper’s cheek, and she feels it. Feels _him._ She breaks down, latches onto Tony and doesn’t let go. “I’m here.” He says again, and she reaches out. Runs a finger along his face, the way his stubble is framed _just so_ in the kind of way she remembers all too well.

And so, she hugs him. Holds him tightly, as if he’ll fade away if she loosens her grip.

“How?” She asks, feeling tears come to her eyes.

“Let’s just say that this-” He says, gesturing at himself as best he can, what with her wrapping her arms around him. “-can be manipulated if you try hard enough. Or maybe it’s because I love you and Morgan the most out of everyone in this whole fucking universe and this Casper the Friendly Ghost act allows me to appear to those I love most or something. I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s a lot of stuff Strange could probably explain, which I'm just gonna condense down into _a fuckton of_ _mystical shit_.”

“I thought that’s mommy’s word.”

Pepper whirls around. Spots Morgan, standing there, looking at her parents with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“Well, it is, but uh...I have a special license to use it.” Tony says. “You don’t.”

“I love you three-thousand-and-fifty.” Morgan says, and going by the way Tony smiles, Pepper gets the feeling she’s missing out on something.

“Just a fifty-point increase? Come on, I saved the universe! Well, I mean, _we_ saved the universe, but it’s like, all the same to me at this point…”

“I wanna juice pop.” Morgan says, standing up and walking over to hug her father. Tony scoops her up in his ghostly, ethereal arms and pulls Pepper into an embrace.  

“I’ll give you all the juice pops in the world.” He says. “After breakfast.” He adds.

“We’re never gonna let you go.” Pepper says, and Tony makes a sound of acknowledgement.

“Well, you’re gonna have to eventually.” He murmurs, and Pepper stiffens. “Because I don’t know about you two, but I am _starving._ I haven’t had bacon and juice pops in...a while. A long, long while.” His words cause Pepper to laugh, all the tension in her spine going out like air from a balloon.

“Just a bit longer.” Morgan says. “Please, daddy?”

Tony holds his family closer.

“Take all the time you need.” He says.

…

_It was like a time bomb set into motion_

_We knew that we were destined to explode_

_And if I had to pull you out of the wreckage_

_You know I'm never gonna let you go_

_We're like a time bomb, gonna lose it_

_Let's diffuse it_

_Baby, we're like a time bomb, but I need it_

_Wouldn't have it any other way_

_\- Alex Gaskarth_

  


**Author's Note:**

> I saw Endgame.
> 
> I sobbed in the theater.
> 
> Hence, this. 
> 
> Still working on my usual retinue of stories, for those of you wondering. I just really, really needed to do this first.


End file.
